THIS IS FINDON
VILLAGE — these Findon Chronicles created by Valerie Martin, contain scenes from
her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.
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4th September 1940 — The grim remains of the severed
engine of
the German Messerschmitt Bf-110 that crashed with such force that it almost buried
itself in the ground. |
THE HIGH SALVINGTON MESSERSCHMITT
Bf-110C-4 — Wednesday 4th
September 1940
Copyright Valerie Martin
2010
Between
1st and 18th August 1940
the RAF lost 208 fighters and 106 pilots. Later in the month saw even
heavier losses. Wastage now outstripped the production of new aircraft and
the training of pilots to fly them. Those British pilots that did survive
suffered from combat fatigue.
After the evacuation of the tired
and ragged men of
the Allied forces campaign from Dunkirk, the months of August and September 1940
witnessed fierce air battles fought in the skies over Findon.
As I have said before when recording wartime Findon, it is
very difficult piecing together the evidence years later as memories
are hazy and sometimes conflicting.
I have endeavoured to present the facts as I have unravelled them.
It was precisely 13:25 on Wednesday 4th September
1940 when there was a noise of aircraft over Findon. This persisted.
It was just one year since Britain
had enter into the war.
Findonians looked skywards to see some RAF fighters like dots
in the distance, dancing about in the sunlight. There was about to be a dog
fight. There were bursts of machine gun
fire and a big air battle started in our skies and aircraft whirled about in the
sun as R.A.F. and Free Polish pilots shot down six German aircraft in under an
hour and left trailing smoke as they
crashed.
One of these enemy aircraft was Messerschmitt Bf-110-4, serial
3254, Unit 7.ZG 76, Code 2N+BM and it came under heavy fire during fighter
combat in the clear blue sky over Findon. The twin tail section was completely blown off by
the machine-gun bullets from a Hurricane flown by Pilot
Officer H. C. Upton of No. 43 Squadron, Tangmere.
The two crew members of the Messerschmitt escaped by
immediately baling out and their two parachutes blossomed
out over Findon and were silhouetted against the blue sky as they came down, they were....
Oberleutnant
Walter Schiller (he was Staffelführer
of 7. Staffel). Captured.
Feldwebel Helmut Winkler (gunner/wireless operator). Wounded and captured.
Left to its own devices the yellow-nosed Messerschmitt
plummeted to the ground on the north side of the High Salvington hillside in
Cote Street and the engine partly buried itself in the ground, burned and
was completely destroyed. The noise was deafening. The
time was 13.25.
One parachute (I am not sure which) landed somewhere near Gallops
Farm and it is said that the angry farmer was promptly on the scene threatening to exact the fatal penalty
to Britain's enemy when the Canadian soldiers appeared on the scene and
restrained him.
The second
parachutist made a very spectacular arrival virtually in the centre of Findon by
becoming miserably entangled in a tree on the opposite side of the road to
Kingswood Farm on the A24. Brian Chappell was a teenager living at The Oval in Findon
at the time. He has told me that seeing this German parachute descending
from the sky was too good an opportunity to miss. He leaped over the back
fence of his garden and ran towards the crash
site. A Hurricane was circling overhead and when the pilot saw the
lad, he waved his wings and flew off.
Brian shinned up the tree to the
parachutist (not stopping to even think that the enemy crewman might be armed).
When Brian clambered level to him, the German put his hands up and Brian
motioned for him to descend the tree. I think it can now be recorded
that on that day, Brian captured the German at aged thirteen.. Brian
remembers how young the crewman looked, wearing a German uniform and not a
flying suit. He untangled the parachute.
A large contingent from the village had rushed to the scene. The reception party consisted of all the local soldiers and the police who had
hurried to the spot. It was said that Edward Budd's brother, a member of
the Home Guard, made the official capture. He persuaded the
Canadians (who seemed to have taken charge) to let him have the parachute as a
souvenir. This was taken apart by
the village women who had arrived by that time to share out the prize. (Parachutes could be cut up and made
into many items during wartime rationing in Findon!)
The weary and shaken German was taken off in a Bedford 15 cwt truck.
Miss J. Naish of Pavilion Road in Worthing
wrote up her vivid memories of that summer and the events that took place. She recalled many years later
that she had witnessed seeing a single-engine Messerschmitt
shot down in flames ... but she recalled there was a crew of three and
Messerschmitt fighters only carried two crew members........
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I was lying down in the grass on
the Downs reading a stamp magazine when the silence was broken by an awful
roar and the sound of machine gunning in the blue sky.
Suddenly a Messerschmitt fighter hurled past about 200 yards away going
from east to west. A little smoke was trailing from all over
the plane. It flew on, losing height, and struck a hedge several
hundred yards away and then burst into orange-yellow flames.
The black smoke
towered into a tall column and I saw two more black columns behind
Cissbury Ring and Chanctonbury Ring. I saw four little white
parachutes against the sky and a
British Spitfire
at the bottom of the hill where it had plunged into the ground at an
angle. The British fighter was surrounded by soldiers.
The
wide ploughed field between Honeysuckle Lane and the track by the old
waterworks was soon full of fire engines, ambulances and police vans.
We heard that one German pilot had parachuted into Wiston Park Lake and
drowned and that another had come down near Titch Hill Farm, Beggars Bush,
and had refused a glass of milk from a farm girl because he was told in
Germany that he would be poisoned if he landed in Britain.
A third airman came down on top of a tree on the A24
road to Horsham and had to be fetched down by force.
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The column of smoke behind Chanctonbury Ring as described by
Miss Naish just could have been (a) one of our own fighters crashing in the
marshy valley by the A283 between Steyning and Bramber. There was one such
disaster at map reference OS 181 117 and this aircraft dug itself so deeply into
the soil that rescuers had to cut the tail off and then bury the remainder of
the plane until many years later when it was finally removed.
On the other hand it could have been (b)
The Mystery of the Tolmare Farm Spitfire
The Findon News of 1967 reported in 1967
that -
"memories of the 1939/45
conflict were already becoming too hazy for exact reportage!"
How well I know that feeling now in the twenty-first century.
I find my job very difficult in
untangling the past. How hard it is writing local history from the
distance of over half a century!
In 1979 the actual site of the downing of the Messerschmitt
Bf-110 at High Salvington was excavated but only
small surface fragments remained of the crash.
Also on Wednesday 4th September 1940, at 13.50 a
Messerschmitt Bf-ll0C-4, serial 2116, crashed landed at Mill Hill on the nearby
Shoreham Downs after a confrontation with R.A.F. fighters from 43, 601 and 602
Squadrons.
The crew were....
Oberleutnant Wilhelm Schäfer (pilot and Adjutant).
Captured unhurt.
and Oberleutnant Wilhelm Unteroffizier Heinz
Bendjus (wireless operator). Slightly wounded and captured.
Both were taken prisoners of war and the aircraft was a
complete write off.
I have endeavoured to discover exactly how many aeroplanes
were shot down (or crashed) in the Findon area during the dark days of war.
It has been very difficult. There appear to be no comprehensive
details and it has been a very difficult and confusing task. I have
attempted to record them as accurately as I can. Not being
around at the time, has not helped me!
During the Battle of Britain many dogfights had occurred
in the sky and afterwards quantities of shrapnel were picked up in and around Findon. Young children could not be left
alone to play in their backyards for fear of fragments thrown by exploding
shells or bombs. Babies could not even have their normal morning sleep in
their prams in the garden — it was too dangerous and they were confined indoors for the
duration of hostilities.
Continue to read about the
Messerschmitt Bf-110 on the A24
north of Findon — 4th September 1940
Back
to WWII Air Crashes Index
Back to Main Index
This is
Findon Village —
www.findonvillage.com is
a continually growing record created by Valerie Martin exclusively for
documenting life in Findon.
